Wonderful! - Wonderful! 158: The Red Big Barn

Episode Date: November 11, 2020

Rachel's favorite stare down! Griffin's favorite unwritten grammatical rule! Rachel's favorite quick nourishment! Griffin's favorite sea life power jam!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaDemand police accountability and reform: https://action.justiceforbreonna.org/sign/BreonnaWasEssential/Ways to support Black Lives Matter and find anti-racism resources: https://linktr.ee/blacklivesmatter   MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Hello, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. This is the show that you've decided to listen to today. And thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate that you could be listening to any podcast right now. You know there are a lot of choices when you podcast and we appreciate

you sticking with us. And we'll make it worth your while. Please don't leave. Please don't go. Please don't go away. Even if it gets a little boring or like you've heard us. Well, no, I'm not saying it will, but if it does, please don't go. Please don't go away. Even if it gets a little boring or like you've heard us. Well, no, I'm not saying it will, but if it does, please don't turn us off. Maybe the spark is starting to go, but we urge you, there's still spark left.

You never, you finish what you started. You never stick with anything. So listen to our, you started listening to our podcast quitter you don't want to be a quitter do you um this is a this is a show where we talk about things that are good things that we're into uh we casually neg our audience just a little bit uh i think uh this hopefully the tone of this episode will be a little bit different than the sort of wild panicked energy of our last installment although hey guess what things are still weird out there things are still weird things are weird getting

weirder some things are getting a little bit better but still pretty pretty wild um but we're still here we're still talking about shit so um do you have any small wonders do you want to go first i'll go first sure uh i'll say that queen's gambit show on netflix got me real hard back into chess again yeah got back on the chess chess.com app my rating was in the toydy but i've been bumping it back up a few games a lot of puzzles gotta love me a chess puzzle oof i can really sink my teeth into a good chess puzzle uh yeah i've been i've been really enjoying chess lately i'm learning new things still about chess of course there's an infinite number of things to learn which is what is so

appealing to me that had to have been enough time certainly um i mean so we we slept with the window open last night oh yes i feel like this is something we talked about before sleeping with a window open almost certainly yeah but the weather's gotten cooler and i i like i finally got to pull up that down comforter love it cover my body with it love it it's just the best i think people who don't live in a warm climate like don't necessarily appreciate the sweet release of fall and winter uh like if you live in chicago it's like that's your life but when it finally in the middle of fucking november starts to get a little chilly it's like the jam is finally fall here which is ridiculous because many places throughout the country have had several inches of

snow at this point and we are like oh wait wait is it fall now um i think i go first this week can you confirm or deny that i don't think that's true. Oh, it's not? No, if you look at the website, it says that I go first. Oh, shoot. Which is another reminder to me that we really are completely dependent on this website. I wanted to talk about eye contact. Oh, okay.

This is, as you know, a struggle for me. I realized the thing that is really missing from this, you know, like Zoom, WebEx culture. Yeah. Like you are able to have meetings where you can see faces, but you don't get that eye contact. What? Don't you? I guess you get webcam contact. You can't confirm that they are looking into your eyes they may be looking at the camera oh interesting but if there are multiple participants in said call i guess you can only look at one pair of eyes at a time wow babe that's true that's so beautiful i um it does make me a little bit nervous but i'm like i'm pretty into

it i'm gonna try and keep constant eye contact with you this whole segment. And there's no way I'm going to be able to actually accomplish it. It's a very intimate thing. It really increases your connection with somebody. Yeah. Inspires a lot of confidence. There's been a lot of research on it. I want to share some of that.

Just boosts the libido. Doesn't it? the intimacy of it the libido goes wild i can't do this i freaking can't i was getting like weird tunnel vision like the rest of my office was like starting to blur and my eyes started to hurt i guess eye contact doesn't necessitate like a staring contest. That's a different thing. Yeah, there was a study where psychologists tried to establish the preferred length of eye contact and they concluded on average, it is three seconds. Yeah, anything longer than that seems transgressive.

They said that no one in the study preferred gazes that lasted longer than nine seconds. Of course not. So that is why you are feeling the discomfort you are feeling. When we were in the middle of our wedding ceremony, delivering our vows, I couldn't look at you for longer than nine seconds in the eyes. That is a confrontation at that point.

So I thought there was just a lot that was very interesting about this. A lot of studies. So I looked at this article that BBC put out in 2019 that kind of combined a lot of these studies and said that in these studies, people who are rating strangers when they are rating strangers with whom they've made eye contact, they rate them as more similar to us uh in terms of their personality and appearance and it it creates this process that they call pupil mimicry or pupil contagion whoa what where your eyes will dilate if somebody else's dilates when you look at them it's this like subconscious

social mimicry is what they said well that's buckwild yeah so if i just went and got an eye exam at the eye doctor and i come back looking like i'm wearing those like weird uh like incubus uh eye contacts that's your eyes will try and get there too i guess so that's that's that's out there man um the the pupils dilating is a big thing of interest because it is a way that people show that they are more aroused or stimulated. And that there was actually a plant extract that people used to deliberately take.

These women would take this plant extract called belladonna to deliberately dilate their pupils as a way to make themselves seem more attractive. Wow. Isn't that fascinating? That's really fascinating. Yeah. No, I didn't do a whole lot of research on that, but I think that's kind of cool.

Yeah, sure. So it does make people uncomfortable. I've actually talked about this with some of our friends because we have a friend who is known for making very intense, deliberate eye contact. Yes. Uh, and I personally like it. I think it's really engaging. I feel really connected. Absolutely. But we have friends that are like, I can't, I can't look. It's too much. It's very intense.

Um, and so there's a suggestion actually, like when working with children in particular, to look away because it interferes with working memory. A lot of times people have trouble holding information. When they are being eye- When they are getting that kind of eye contact. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. There's a suggestion from psychologists that if you are having trouble getting a young child to answer questions, that you could look away and make them feel more comfortable.

But yeah, there has been research to say that people that make more eye contact have been perceived to be more intelligent, more conscientious, and sincere, at least in Western cultures. Yeah, sure. And that you're more inclined to believe somebody when they make eye contact with you. Okay. Well, I'll try and be better about it, but I probably won't. Can I do my first thing? Yes. This is like a, I feel like this episode is like a real brain games, like.

Isn't that interesting? Because my first thing is absolutely that. thing because uh my my first thing is absolutely that it is the uh arbitrary but seemingly uh like ironclad rules that govern adjective order are you aware of this have you heard of this i don't know you ever seen this thing i don't know if i know what you're talking about okay so it's one of those like weird language things that you don't learn really in school unless you are learning basically english as a second language like you kind of have to do it but it is this weird osmosis thing that uh determines when you are describing something with multiple adjectives in a sentence the order in which those descriptors have to be used it's this intuitive like largely unwritten rule that is weirdly unbreakable.

And it's something that has only been a subject of study and categorization over the last couple decades. It went viral, this rule did, back in 2016 when somebody tweeted out an excerpt from this book called The Elements of Eloquence. And I'm going to read it now verbatim. Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order. Opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, purpose, noun. Whoa. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife, but if you mess with that word order in the slightest, you'll

sound like a maniac. It's an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out. And as size comes before color, green, great dragons can't exist. I'm looking at Rachel's mind just slowly start to seep out of her ears as it has been exploding.

What I'm thinking about is that sentence. What is that sentence? I may have to look it up. That people use so they use every letter on the keyboard. Oh, the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog? Yeah. I know it's not a great example. But it is that because you can't say the brown quick fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Like to use the sentence in this excerpt, like you can't say a rectangular French old little lovely silver green whittling knife. Like that sounds wrong and bad. It's confusing. It's hard to keep your brain on anything. And there's so many phrases that like try and break this rule and it sounds wild. The one that I loved in an article from The Guardian was my big fat Greek wedding. Like it can't be my big Greek greek fat wedding like it can't it cannot be that you can't have uh leather walking brown boots like it just doesn't it just doesn't

work uh and it gets a little bit more complicated the more you sort of dive into language which i'm going to do a little bit and our listeners are going to fall asleep. But there's two broad categories of adjective use cases that can affect that rule a bit. There's co-relative adjectives that sort of fall into similar categories in that list. And they can be kind of interchangeable in how you use them in order because they're broken up by commas a lot of the time. But then there's cumulative adjectives that change the meaning of the noun that follows it. So things like former or fake or alleged, like if you switch around the order of those adjectives, it actually transforms the meaning of the sentence and what you're trying to say about the noun. But most of the time, like that doesn't happen. And that's where this word order like absolutely comes into play.

And I called it arbitrary in the intro to this segment. And I think it is largely arbitrary as like defined as it is. But what defines this list, what defines this order, people at least assume is the more specific and concrete and permanent the descriptor of the noun the closer it has to be to the noun okay okay so like a whittling knife like whittling knife just describes the purpose of the knife and therefore is like the inherent to the knife something like green is like important right but it's not as important as the whittling knife. So as you move further and further back, calling it lovely is opinion. That is the least important thing because it is your own shit. It

is like so far removed from being integral to the existence of the item itself. Isn't that fucking bonkers? There have been a lot of studies studies using like these, you know, crawling programs that like scan through centuries, millennia of literature in English. And it always follows this. Like it has always followed this example, even though it is not like a, again, a thing that we are properly taught. Not only that, it's a thing that we don't even know about i did not know that we followed this order until i saw this this this tweet and it sort of opened up my my my eyes to this hidden you know 99 invisible truth of language yeah yeah no i'm thinking a lot about about learning another language you know and i remember like you know in like french and spanish like the

adjective often follows the noun yeah uh and hearing that english is a very hard language to learn but not really understanding why but it is it's rules like this yeah that are so different we take that for granted because this is an outrageously i read one of these articles like just try and make a a uh oh god what's it called when you try to uh come up with a device to remember a thing a mnemonic device for this you can't it's like an impossible thing to mnemonically it's a huge wild important rule that often than not you're not using a whole lot of adjectives to describe something no most of the time it is like the a big red barn you can't say a red big barn like it's but even that it's two adjectives and if you switch the order it doesn't sound good yeah that's it's anyway i i i saw this uh like i don't know

earlier this year and this week when i was like trying to come up with stuff i was like hey i remember when this life-changing sort of bit of uh errata came into my life and so I wanted to share that with so there is there a name for it or it's just this is just a phenomenal adjective order there's not like a there's not like a proper proper name for it so anyway uh I we can keep doing this show this episode but I think there's probably a large chunk of our audience that's just going to be thinking about this and like trying to run the math on it. Yes. Yes.

But for those of you who are still with us, can I steal you away? Yeah. Oh, we do have some jumbo bombs this time. We do have some. A lot of people were wondering. We do have some jumbo bombs this time. We do have some. A lot of people were wondering. We do have some. And this one is for Josh, and it's from Erica, who says, Happy birthday to my wonderful boyfriend.

Not really a pun, but I bet you hate it. I'm so thankful for everything we share, from the McElroys to 90 Day Fiance, and I feel so lucky to have found a partner in you. I'm so proud to be your girlfriend, and I'm so excited for everything we have coming for us in the future. I love you, Josh. This is for November 13th,

so we sort of slam dunked this one. Yeah. Congratulations on finding a guilty pleasure TV show to share as a couple. It's so important. I feel like that is an important step in any relationship. Yeah. And it really unites you and your shame.

Is that an American Ninja Warrior for us? It sure feels like it. I think it would be generous to assume we only have one. That's fair. That's fair. This message is for Jake. It is from Greta. Dear Jack Lahore, surprise.

I love you. Trying to think of new ways to tell you how wonderful you are is hard, and so I am telling the world. You give me tea when my tum hurts, poems when I'm sad, and tolerate my chaotic playlists of Joanna Newsom, Pink Panther, X-Files theme. Let's go play Fallen Order. I love you forever and more each day. Love, Grubby Grouper. This is, I wish you all could see it's funny we did e cummings last week the efficiency of language uh that greta has used in this in this message a lot of ampersands yeah a lot of just very very good use of the characters in this message yeah yeah no i there's a point in the message when she just eliminates spaces entirely and i like that it's

so powerful and i will will say, though, that the Joanna Newsom Pink Panther X-Files theme sort of playlist is the wildest shit I've ever heard in my life. Listen, I'm a hotshot Hollywood movie producer. You have until I finish my glass of kombucha to pitch me your idea. Go.

All right. It's called Who Shot Ya?, a movie podcast that isn't just a bunch of straight white dudes. I'm Ify Whiteyway, the new host of the show and a certified BBN. BBN? Buff Black Nerd. I'm Alonzo Doraldi, an elderly gay and legit film critic who wrote a book on Christmas movies. I'm Drea Clark, a loud white lady from Minnesota.

Each week, we talk about a new movie in theaters and all the important issues going on in the film industry. It's like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner meets Cruising. And if it helps seal the deal, I can flex my muscles while we record each episode. I'm sorry, this is a podcast? I'm a movie producer. How did you get in here? Iffy, quick, start flexing.

Bicep, lats, chest. Who shot you? Dropping every Friday on MaximumFun.org or wherever you listen to podcasts. Can I tell you my second thing? I wish you would. It is the drive-thru. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, getting through it. Yeah. We had a little drive-thru adventure the other day. Yeah, it was not pleasant. But I will say that normally this is in a very efficient, valuable aspect of a restaurant these days. Yes, for sure sure i wish every

restaurant did it i wish i could get like drive through outback steakhouse or whatever i don't know why that is i don't know why that's where i went i appreciate that you were looking for like a national relatable restaurant across this country and that is that is where you went yep just give me a big steak and uh some some cellophane uh this is something that uh you know a lot of restaurants are pivoting to and a lot of restaurants have been doing for decades yeah they are really thriving i think in this economy the articles i read specifically called out these like frontline workers and like emergency responders that are working in all hours and have very little personal time really jumping on these these options yeah uh and it's something that's been around uh forever the first drive-thru opened in 1947 and was not at mcdonald's interesting was it a place called called red's giant hamburg on sure yeah on route 66 in springfield missouri okay uh this uh location

closed in 1984 so the current award for the longest running burger drive-thru goes to in and out which opened in 1948 interesting see i got the impression we watched that the founder movie about the guy who founded mcdonald's yeah and made it seem like they were the first ones to do mcdonald's didn't do it until 1975 what a joke what a joke uh the first drive-through focus chain was jack-in-the-box in 1951 okay okay um most jack-in-the-boxes now have indoor dining areas but 85 percent of their orders uh are drive-thru or to-go. Not especially shocking. Yeah, I will say I don't know which came first, the minimization of the indoor dining or if just the realization nobody's eating in here, why would we make it a nice place to be i have to imagine that the drive-through

made the in-room dining experience obsolete instead of it being an answer to people not eating inside the like the fact that most of these places don't even have discrete chairs a lot of times it is just like a booth bench attached to the table okay but we're i i would are i'm talking completely out of my ass but anecdotally i feel like that's a fairly recent phenomenon because like we used to go to mcdonald's and eat when i was like a kid we would like eat in the mcdonald's like we would go to burger king and eat in the burger king yeah and just like kick it there it wasn't that because they had like a little kids a kids vibe that is actually exactly it like they had the play place and shit.

I don't think we ever ate inside a Taco Bell. They had nothing for us there. Oh my gosh, I never thought about the fact that a Taco Bell has never had like a play structure. Maybe they have. I'm sure there's one outside case where they had like the Taco Bell fun zone. Roughly 70% of sales at most fast food spots take place through the window

uh some new kind of commerce the drive-through scene uh starbucks yeah the majority of starbucks now have drive-through they actually have like relocated a lot of starbucks specifically to have that capability um and move to kind of off-highway locations because it's become such a successful model for them. A longtime holdout, but recent joiner on the drive-thru scene, Chipotle. Wow, I didn't know this. They have just started doing this.

They held out forever because they really saw a lot of value in the face-to-face subway kind of experience where you, you talk to somebody and they make your food in front of you. Their new goal for 2020 is to have 60% of new Chipotle restaurants to have drive-through and 70% in 2021. I think they have realized that they have to adapt to this new climate. And they're doing the

same thing starbucks did where they are looking for locations that have that capability now it's so wild we're talking about so many places that we like occasionally would go to pre-covid that like it's weird to me i haven't had any starbucks coffee i mean i wasn't getting starbucks on the daily but sometimes i'd drive by one and be like, well, I'll get a little special something. But it has been now, what, eight, nine months since I last did it? Yeah, I feel like, I mean, what is tricky about drive-thru and the reason a lot of people like Panera, for example, did a lot of research on drive-thru before they started doing it. Because it's associated with food that, you know, like is more like shelf stable.

Right, yeah. And a lot of restaurants like Chipotle and Panera that prioritize this, like we have these, you know, like nice fresh ingredients. How do you translate that to like putting it in a bag? But that's what's so wild. It's putting it in a bag and handing it through a window is essentially the same thing as handing it over a cash register and then you eating it right in front of them.

Like it's just front of them. It's just an optical concern. And I feel like maybe this is the perfect time for us to transition because the alternative is, I guess I'm not going to eat Chipotle for... Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And I think drive-thru used to really prioritize speed as their thing, which is why I think a lot of restaurants thought, well, that's not going to work for us. Yeah. speed is their thing, which is why I think a lot of restaurants thought, well, that's not going to work for us.

Yeah. But the time for drive-thrus has actually gotten slower over the years, like the average wait time. Like, it used to be, like, around two minutes, and now it's, like, doubled since then. Four minutes? Who's got the time? So, QSR Magazine, which is, I'm sure, a magazine. Oh, my God.

I can't believe we're referencing qsr magazine in this show and not my bim bam so they did a 2020 uh study of america's favorite drive-thrus uh i didn't really want to talk about number one because number one is chick-fil-a and obviously that is not are you great number fucking one yeah because so they rate on overall experience speed of service okay okay it's not just popularity yeah friendliness of staff cleanliness menu item availability homophobia order accuracy yeah number two arby's wow oft maligned arby's okay so we're talking quality control right we've had we've had had bad experiences where just like waiting in line at McDonald's and the line

doesn't move for 15 minutes and you just like bounce. I'm thinking about it. I don't know that I've had too many terrible Arby's experiences except how I feel after I eat the big roast beef sandwich. Yeah. And it's those categories. It's the like, you know, speed of service. Right.

Order accuracy. So if you look at the little table, it's like consumer reports. They have different scores in each. Wow, I just saw what's next on the list. This list is wild, y'all. Yeah, Culver's. Never had it.

No, me neither. I think it's a regional thing. A lot of people that grew up around a lot of Culver's are more likely. Sure. That's chicken, right? Culver's and then fried of culvers are more likely sure that's just chicken right culvers and then fried chicken i mean i think that's one of the things they it's like a chicken sandwich i think yeah because i i hear that as like one of the replacements for for

chick-fil-a i feel like the bottom three are uh mcdonald's kfc and popeyes hmm god you gotta almost forgive kf. That's a, that's a, that's a tough thing, right? A lot of those low scores come from cleanliness and sanitation.

Okay, well, that's a different, that's a different deal. Um, yeah, I, I don't know.

It's, it's, you know, number four on this list is Panera. Like, there are, there are some kind of newer,

newer hits on the scene, but a lot of these on this list are like, have been around forever. You just year to year, they have variation in quality kind of based on whatever's happening at the time. Yeah, I don't know. This is kind of a complicated topic because I'm not necessarily endorsing fast food, but I will say that there were a lot of restaurants that were kind of ready to go

in this climate, and I really say that there were a lot of restaurants that were kind of ready to go in this climate and I really appreciated that uh because they were just able to be like yep let's just do what we've always done yeah and be present for people who need food quickly I'll endorse the fuck out of fast food if you're coming back from like the zoo and it's like 12 15 and your son is like getting real hangry in the backseat. Yeah. It is a nice thing to have in the old quiver. Yeah. Can I talk about my second thing?

Yes. It's a song. It's one of the all-time power jams, I think. I probably said that a lot. But I think you can qualify what is an all-time power jam by like if it comes on the radio, if your response is always like, oh, hell yeah, here we go, then it's an all-time power jam. I gotta say Barracuda by Heart is way up there.

Way up there. I think everybody's probably heard this song because it's been licensed so much for TV shows and movies and everything. It was in Charlie's Angels, I, Tonya, Birds of Prey, Reno 911, Umbrella Academy, a bunch of video games. Most recently in Trolls World Tour. It's

one of the rock trolls songs that is performed. And it just has one of the most undeniable riffs ever. And the song actually opens up with it. So let's play a bit of Barracuda now smile like the sun kisses You know this song, right? You absolutely know Barracuda.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, props to Heart. Props to Heart. For making some real lady jams, you know? Yeah, they were huge sort of groundbreaking figures in women-led rock and roll groups. huge sort of groundbreaking figures in women-led rock and roll groups. And actually, Barracuda is largely about the obstacles that they faced,

which is to say like shitty dudes in the record label and promoters. It came on their second studio album, Little Queen, in 1977. It was a big single for them. It stayed on the charts for like half a year. And Little Queen was their first album with this new label. Their first album that they ever released was with a company called Mushroom Records. So Anne and Nancy Wilson are the front people for the band Heart.

They are sisters. And they were doing a tour. They were doing some shows while still under Mushroom Records. And this promoter, while they were on tour, came up with this completely fabricated bullshit story that Ann and Nancy, sisters, were in a relationship with each other oh my gosh and when they found out they found out like backstage at a show from like some promoter who like jokingly said it uh ann wilson got fucking furious went back to her hotel and wrote barracuda that is the that is the story so it is it's not just about. It is also about just like awful men who tried to take advantage of them

or just stop their rise as they were like coming up. So actually they dropped their label. They dropped Mushroom Records. They had a complete album with them that is unreleased because they were like, fuck this. They were just trying to screw them over in contract negotiations. And this was like the straw that broke the camel's back.

So this was on their first album with this new label after they dumped this one. The producer on Little Queen, a guy named Mike Flicker has a quote where he said, Barracuda was created conceptually out of a lot of this record business bullshit. Barracuda could be anyone from the local promotion man to the president of a record company. That is the Barr barracuda it was born out of that whole experience uh so like that is

every music industry experience right you work so hard to get signed and get an album and you feel so accomplished and and like all right this is it this is what i've been working for and then you find out some garbage like that yeah it's just like this doesn't mean anything like i am a commodity uh so i am glad that they got something good out of that situation they had to like push back against shit like that like their whole careers and uh like i'm not one to glorify like suffering for art especially if it's for something that like i've never experienced which is sexism uh but barracuda is a is a absolutely incredible song that represents something that has kind of uh there have been interviews with uh with ann wilson about like uh in the me too era like this song has like takes on new meaning and is like all the more relevant. And it was something that like they were actively,

you know, singing about back in the late 70s when they were being kind of jerked around. The song absolutely just rips too. Like that riff is amazing. What's really interesting, and I didn't think about until I was like researching it, compositionally speaking, the song is wild because if you really listen to it with like a critical ear it changes time signatures a lot like it goes from like four four like standard time signature

to like two four for a little bit then back to four four and then for like a single line it'll go to five four like and it which uh the i read an article about the song i was like it's almost impossible to do unless you like really, really know it in karaoke because you're going to get off on the timing just all the time because of these weird sort of swings in time signature, which I thought was- Yeah, it gives it like a real chaotic energy.

Yeah. Makes it like real appropriate for movies like I, Tonya. Yes, absolutely. And the vocals are just like out of control. Another thing that makes it really, really difficult to do in karaoke when you get the the i mean i just did it perfectly and flawlessly with my incredible angel voice but like you know you can't expect you know the the novice to get up there i do it the one thing i think that is impossible to recreate is the absolute stink that is put on the word Barracuda every time it is sung.

Barracuda. Like, it's so iconic and good. I just, I think this is one, I love talking about songs like this that are, I think, iconic rock songs. And I don't, I just don't think you can do much better than Barracuda. It is such an exciting song. Man, heart rules, too. God heart rules. god heart rules anyway uh do you want to know what our friends at home are talking about yes daniel says my wonderful

thing is skimming stones i got really good at it during lockdown here in the uk and nothing beats watching a stone skip a lot across uh the flat water i'm glad that daniel outlined that he lives in the uk because i've never heard skimming stones i've only heard skipping stones yeah you know i have but i i'm a citizen of the world i think i see i see i see uh this was a talent i thought that griffin had thought so just we were down by a lake i thought you did we were by a lake with henry recently and i picked up some flat stones by the water i was like come son rachel you're the one who like actually made me do it you were trying to get me on some fucking norman rockwell painting shit i was like come son come with me to the water we were having this wholesome time of

family togetherness and i thought griffin why don't you teach our son to skip rocks this beautiful moment absolutely honey sploosh sploosh sploosh and the sun is looking up at me like why daddy why don't you i can throw rocks daddy you're a failure uh luke when you actually do it uh we have a friend uh who we went on like a cabin trip with like a long time ago who you know grew up in in rural in the wilds i would say visiting the wilds more often than not who could just like skip a rock you know across state lines yeah it's not a question of will it skip it's like can I get over seven uh Luke says my wonderful thing is buy nothing groups on Facebook uh these are groups spread across the country and linked to specific neighborhoods where people post things for

others to take for free and uh if in a time of need post requests for something before resorting to buying it the term they use to describe this is a gift economy oh my gosh this is like a big thing in austin griffin knows my experience with this it is it is neighborhood specific at least generally and in order to join you have to kind of demonstrate that you are in that neighborhood because some neighborhoods are better than others absolutely we have a friend who who is very very active in the buy nothing group. Yeah, like got like a trampoline, you know, like has received large pieces of furniture. And it's given away a lot of stuff. It's an incredible thing.

It is, it's great. It's great. But it just really depends on the culture that is created in your community. And in my community, somebody, well, several people have used it to just kind of give away their trash. There is a picture of something that is an old food item. And there is a suggestion of, I am not going to eat this.

Would you like to? Well, that I think, I mean, that is, I think, also fulfilling the purpose of the group. The example that you told me is somebody got a pizza delivered to their house. Yeah, this blew me away. Somebody woke up in the morning to discover two pizzas sitting in front of their house that they did not order. And it had been cold enough overnight that she assumed that maybe some other person might want this cold 24-hour pizza.

Yeah. And then I've also seen an empty peanut butter jar as, but not cleaned out. Yeah. Just like, like with 0.01% peanut butter still in it.

Yeah, I'm uncomfortable saying like food, food donation is a bad idea through these groups or a bad idea at all. But like,

I don't think anybody can stand up for an empty peanut butter jar. I don't think, I think that's probably pretty indefensible. Yeah. Thanks to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay.

You can find a link to that in the episode description. And thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. They have so many great shows there. Absolutely, tons of great shows. And I would really encourage y'all to kind of expand your podcast repertoire. There's always new episodes up so you can try something new anytime yeah um hey if you listen to my brother my brother and me we are doing a live streaming uh episode of the show with sawbones opening next saturday

you can find all the details and get tickets now at mackroyfamily.com i've really been trying to talk griffin into some visual gags for this virtual show. So funny. You were like, what about a big bow tie? And I was like, babe, babe, stop. I'm down. My sides are splitting. Working on it. Money won't pay. Working on it. Money won't pay.

Working on it. Money won't pay. Working on it. Money won't pay. Working on it. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience supported.